These boots are made for walking....and walking...and walking

Friday Emma had a field trip. It was was walking trip, from the school to the library, library to a park, park to a statue, then back to the school. Approximately a 6 mile walk. We left the school without incident, walking to the library. The teacher's cell phone rang when we were about 2 blocks from the library, and the principle tells us we have to return. The school is going into a "soft lockdown".

I should mention that on the way over to the school, I had heard over the radio that this man who had escaped police custody the night before was on the loose and had stolen a car. Schools in the northwest suburbs had locked down. But that was still pretty far from us.

Anyway, we get almost all the way back to the school and the teacher's phone started ringing. She answers it, talks for a minute, then looks at us and says "I don't know how to tell you this, but it's over. If you're up for it, we can go back. " We all look at each other and shrug. So back we go.

Of course, now we're running about 45 minuted behind, so we're walking really fast. But we made it to everything. Then on the way back, we went a different way which left us no choice but to climb this REALLLLLLY steep hill right near the end. And by this time all the kids are whining and complaining. But as soon as the teacher yells, "Kids, run up the hill! We'll meet you at the playground" the kids start screaming and running up this hill. About half way up they starts slowing down and by the end they're pratically crawling. We adults are still at the bottom, just gazing up. Then we climb. About two thirds up, I look at this woman next to me and say, "I feel like a contestant on the biggest loser". Which gave us all a laugh. And the energy to keep going.

Turns out the escapee was heading our direction and in fact was stopped in a town pretty close to us.

It was a lot of fun, learned alot about the native americans in this area and boy, did I sleep well that night!